Brough's writings on the technology, economic and social issues of communications at the intersection of the Internet, telecom and mobility.

July 27, 2010

Commercial use of TV White Spaces in 2 years?

One of the interesting discussions at the Wireless ISP Association meeting in St. Louis last week was around TV White Spaces. Alex Goldman has a good summary from the WISPA point of view. We also heard from Julius Knapp of the FCC during lunch on Thursday.

What's clear:

The FCC is going to act, in the 3rd quarter (before October 1st), on the 17 petitions for reconsideration that are pending. While the details of their decisions will have to wait until their announcement, it's likely the final rules will allow viable commercial markets to develop.

At the same 3Q meeting they are going to adopt policies that allow multiple independent database managers to compete. (There will be a mandatory coordination function).

My conclusions:

Once the final rules are determined, we'll see both Wi-Fi and WiMAX equipment release - in both cases by re-banding existing equipment and adapting existing antenna technology. Over time, other products should emerge, but rebanding existing standards will happen first. We should see products that WISPs can deploy within 2 years.

Comments

Dear Brough Tuner, I find your conclusion interesting and agree to this. For WiFi I guess you mean IEEE 802.11af, but do you know of any progressive initiatives for TV white space access with WiMAX?

I have heard somewhere that WiFi Alliance will certify products for IEEE 802.11af and think this could be an important driver for the first massive commercial deployment of a cognitive radio network in the TV white spaces.

Assuming the white spaces actually do become useful, i.e. the originally proposed rules are relaxed a bit, I expect the (usually smaller) equipment manufacturers that serve the WISP industry to reband products into the white spaces fairly quickly. Most of these will likely be Wi-Fi, either per 802.11af or in advance of "af" if the spec is delayed.

There are fewer WiMAX manufacturers addressing WISP markets, but some of the companies that have rebanded WiMAX gear for the 3650 MHz lite licensed band would be my guess.